VeriFinger from Neurotechnology Provides Fingerprint Verification for Poland's New Biometric Passport System

VILNIUS, Lithuania, March 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Neurotechnology (http://www.neurotechnology.com), a provider of high-precision biometric identification technologies, announced today that VeriFinger was selected to be the fingerprint verification engine for Poland's new biometric passport system. Now implemented in more than 130 passport offices throughout the country, VeriFinger provides reliable 1:1 fingerprint verification at each stage of the passport application, generation and issuance process. Passport producer Polish Security Printing Works (Polska Wytwornia Papierow Wartosciowych S.A. or PWPW) selected the VeriFinger Software Development Kit (SDK) for its combination of high accuracy, very fast matching and the flexibility to work with a wide variety of programming languages and software platforms. Competitive pricing and flexible licensing options from Neurotechnology enabled PWPW to quickly obtain, develop and implement the VeriFinger technology in the new biometric passport system.

"Poland's biometric passport verification is a very important and practical use for our VeriFinger technology," said Dr. Algimantas Malickas, CEO of Neurotechnology. "We are pleased that Polish Security Printing Works explored the advantages provided by VeriFinger and decided to implement it for this project."

All new biometric passports issued by the Polish government are equipped with a contactless microprocessor chip that stores the passport holder's biometric fingerprint information. VeriFinger is used in two stages of the passport issuance process:

• Application – When an applicant provides a fingerprint image, VeriFinger is used to provide a quality score that determines if the image quality is high enough for use in the biometric passport chip.
• Final Verification and Issuance – When the applicant comes in to receive his or her passport, the applicant enrolls the same set of fingerprints and VeriFinger is used to compare the new fingerprint images with those contained in the passport chip. If the match is verified, the new biometric passport is issued to the applicant.

VeriFinger SDK fingerprint identification technology is available for the development of PC- and Web-based solutions on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms. VeriFinger supports multiple scanners and programming languages and works with databases of unlimited size, assuring system performance with fast, reliable fingerprint matching in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many modes. The VeriFinger algorithm has been incorporated in more than 1000 end-user product brands in 98 countries over the past 11 years. VeriFinger includes a NIST MINEX- certified algorithm which consistently has won Fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC) and FpVTE awards since 2000. VeriFinger is capable of fast matching with high reliability and is highly tolerant of rolled and flat fingerprint captures as well as translation, rotation and deformation of the fingerprint image.

The Software Development Kit for VeriFinger, as well as other award-winning biometric technologies from Neurotechnology (including MegaMatcher for large-scale AFIS and multi-biometric systems, VeriLook for facial recognition and VeriEye for iris recognition), are available with highly competitive licensing options through Neurotechnology or from distributors worldwide. 30-day trial versions with full functionality are also available for download. For more information, go to: http://www.neurotechnology.com.

About Neurotechnology

Neurotechnology is a provider of high-precision biometric fingerprint, face, iris and palmprint identification algorithms, object recognition technology and software development products. More than 2000 system integrators, security companies and hardware providers integrate Neurotechnology's algorithms into their products. With millions of customer installations worldwide, Neurotechnology's products are used for both civil and forensic applications, including border crossings, criminal investigations, systems for voter registration, verification and duplication checking, passport issuance and other national-scale projects.

Neurotechnology's identification algorithms have consistently earned the highest honors in some of the industry's most rigorous competitions, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)'s Fingerprint Vendor Technology Evaluation (FpVTE) and the Fingerprint Verification Competitions (FVC).

Drawing from years of academic research in the fields of neuroinformatics, image processing and pattern recognition, Neurotechnology was founded in 1990 in Vilnius, Lithuania and released its first fingerprint identification system in 1991. Since that time the company has released more than 60 products and version upgrades for identification and verification of objects and personal identity.

SOURCE Neurotechnology